John Reed (journalist)

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John Reed
John Reed, American journalist
Born	October 22, 1887 Portland, Oregon, USA
Died	October 19, 1920 Moscow, Russia
Occupation	Journalist
Spouse	Louise Bryant

John "Jack" Silas Reed (October 22, 1887 – October 19, 1920) was an American journalist and communist activist, famous for his first-hand account of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ten Days that Shook the World. He was the husband of the writer and feminist Louise Bryant.

Reed and Bryant were the subjects of the film Reds (1981) directed by Warren Beatty.

1 Birth and education
2 Journalism
3 Communism
4 Bibliography
5 Trivia
6 External links

[edit] Birth and education

Reed was born in 1887 in Portland, Oregon. According to his own writings, he left Portland as soon as he could, to attend Harvard University in 1906, where he wrote for The Harvard Lampoon and was president of the Harvard Glee Club. He went on to graduate in 1910.

[edit] Journalism

He became well known for his journalism particularly for his sympathetic coverage of labor issues, worker rights, strikes, and his reporting of the Mexican Revolution. He had a brief relationship with socialite Mabel Dodge. Reed and his wife, Louise Bryant, were close friends of Eugene O'Neill. While in Europe covering the events of World War I, Reed heard about the brewing Bolshevik Revolution, and went to Russia in 1917. His experiences and interviews with Vladimir Lenin became the subject of a book.

[edit] Communism

John Reed's funeral in Moscow 1920

Upon his return to America, Reed moved to Croton on Hudson, NY and threw himself into the embryonic Communist movement and was a leading figure in the Socialist Party left wing, and a sympathizer of the radical labor union, the Industrial Workers of the World. As such he was instrumental in the foundation of the Communist Labor Party. This party was illegal and only one of two parties vying for the support of the newly founded Communist International (Comintern). It was as a delegate of this party to the Comintern that Reed returned to Russia. While attempting to return to the United States after the Comintern refused to recognize his party as the only American communist party, Reed was imprisoned by anti-Bolshevik forces in Finland. After three months he was released and he returned to Russia again. He died in Moscow of typhus and became the only American buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Red Square. (Half of American Big Bill Haywood's ashes are also buried in the Kremlin; Haywood was a leader and radical organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World.)

[edit] Bibliography

Insurgent Mexico (1914)
The War in Eastern Europe (1916)
Ten Days that Shook the World (1919)
Daughter of the Revolution and Other Stories (1927)

[edit] Trivia

A perennial urban legend in Reed's home town is that Reed College was named for this journalist. Despite the college's reputation for leftist politics, there is no truth to this rumor.
The 1981 film Reds starring Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, and Jack Nicholson, was based on his life, won three Academy Awards, and was nominated for nine more.
Another movie adaptation of his life is the 1982 Soviet two-parter Red Bells, starring Franco Nero.
The 1973 film Reed: Mexico Insurgente is based on his accounts of the Mexican Revolution. [1]